Time limit on politicians' trials at odds with earlier Supreme Court ruling?

NEW DELHI: By fixing a one-year limit for completion of trial against elected representatives, did a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court overstep a seven-judge constitution bench ruling that no outer limit could be set for conclusion of criminal proceedings?

There were several judgments before 2002, in which different benches of the apex court had fixed definite time periods for completion of trial and had ordered that if it overshot the limit, the trial would come to an end and the accused would be acquitted.

All these judgments and their correctness were tested by a seven-judge bench in P Ramachandra Rao vs State of Karnataka [(2002) 4 SCC 578]. The bench ruled, "It is neither advisable, nor feasible, nor judicially permissible to draw or prescribe an outer limit for conclusion of all criminal proceedings.

"The time limits or bars of limitation prescribed in the several directions made in Common Cause (I), Raj Deo Sharma (I) and Raj Deo Sharma (II) could not have been so prescribed or drawn and are not good law. The criminal courts are not obliged to terminate trial or criminal proceedings merely on account of lapse of time, as prescribed by the directions made in Common Cause case (I), Raj Deo Sharma case (I) and (II). Such time limits cannot and will not by themselves be treated by any court as a bar to further continuance of the trial or proceedings and as mandatorily obliging the court to terminate the same and acquit or discharge the accused."

Monday's order by a bench of Justice RM Lodha and Justice Kurian Joseph stayed within the parameters laid down in the seven-judge bench's judgment by clarifying that corruption case and heinous offence trial proceedings against MPs and MLAs would not be terminated on expiry of the one-year period.

It said if under extraordinary circumstances the trial proceedings could not be completed within the prescribed one-year time limit, the trial judge would send a report to the chief justice of the high court concerned explaining reasons for non-completion of proceedings. The bench said the chief justice would give appropriate directions after going through the trial judge's report.

Justice Lodha and Justice Joseph said it was the right of every accused in criminal case to get expeditious trial. "For that to become a reality, the governments must provide more number of judges," it said and requested additional solicitor general Paras Kuhad to impress upon the government to increase the strength of trial judges.

It said in some countries the judge to population ratio was 50 per lakh but in India it was abysmally low at 16 per million (10 lakh). The budgetary allocation too was meagre, it said. "All trials should be completed in one year, why only for MPs and MLAs? But for that the governments need to give more funds and provide adequate judicial infrastructure," it said.